Schools

Program

Use this topic to discuss themes not related to martial arts. Everyone needs to chat sometimes, discuss some personal ideas, maybe talk about movies or music, please use this topic for that, so we can keep all other themes on the Martial Arts topic.

1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

6 "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

"The good neighbour looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers."
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968), 'Strength to Love,' 1963

“It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements, and the other nations, will help you become whole.”
Uncle Iroh, Avatar: The Last Airbender

"Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers."
Leigh Hunt (1784 - 1859)

Yat-Chum, I notice that you too live in the UK and I was wondering how you thought this quotation applied to Britain today? It strikes me that there are many useless traditions and rituals that should have been binned a hundred years ago or more. All that nonsense and flummery in Parliament for instance. The tradition of 'Black Rod' banging on the doors of the Commons to open a new session of Parliament; Lords and Ladies in ermine-trimmed robes in the House of Lords - none of them actually elected (in THIS DAY AND AGE!!!!!); judges and lawyers in wigs and gowns. Britain prides itself on its 'traditions', but look closer at these, and you'll find that they are ALL middle class. After the Industrial Revolution two hundred years ago, when the agricultural class became the new 'cannon fodder' for industry in the burgeoning and slum-infested new cities, they were stripped of all their rural traditions - their music, their clothing and their entire way of life, their entire culture. Even in Scotland, nowadays, 'traditional' Scottish dancing etcetera, is dominated by the middle class and even the kilt, and most of the tartans, were fabrications designed by the novelist Sir Walter Scott in the early nineteenth century for a fanciful middle and upper class, just 50 years after the wearing of Tartans and all indigenous rural Scottish culture was banned by law when the English annihilated Bonnie Prince Charlie's army in the rebellion of 1745. Go over to Norway, for instance, and to many other European countries, and they still have a genuine folk tradition. There is none of that in Britain. All the so-called traditions here are for the elite, the rich, and those who curry favour with politicians. Kind regards, T.

'Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions. Live the questions now. You will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.' Rainer Maria Rilke.